Police: Man killed wife, spent weekend with her body

This map from Google shows the location of 9 Meadow Rue Place in Malta.
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MALTA >> Police that had been dispatched to Kathleen Wilkinson’s Malta home Sunday morning found a nasty surprise when they got there — her body, deceased for several days, and her husband, who spent the weekend in the house with the dead body.

According to a release by Saratoga County District Attorney James A. Murphy III, the deputy performing a welfare check on Kathleen Wilkinson, 65, arrived at her home at 9 Meadow Rue Place and was greeted at the door by her husband, Charles L. Wilkinson, a 69-year-old retired Nassau County police officer and security guard at GlobalFoundries in Malta.

The welfare check was initiated by the couple’s son, who lives in Boston, where their daughter also lives. According to the sheriff, a local relative alerted the son to her concern.

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After a period of discussion, Charles Wilkinson allowed the deputy to enter the residence, at which time he located the body of Kathleen Wilkinson on the floor of a first-floor bedroom. Murphy declined to elaborate on Wilkinson’s demeanor when he greeted the deputy.

Murphy said Kathleen Wilkinson was allegedly choked to death by her husband during a physical domestic dispute and that her husband continued to live at the house. An autopsy was performed on the victim Monday afternoon, and forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Sikirica determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation by strangulation.

The couple, according to county Sheriff Michael Zurlo, have lived in the area for 10 years. Kathleen Wilkinson was a retired teacher’s aide and her husband was a painter before he worked at GlobalFoundries. He retired from the police department in 1984 and didn’t work at any local law-enforcement agencies again thereafter.

There are no other charges for either Wilkinson on the books, according to Zurlo, and no known history of domestic violence.

In front of the couple’s home at 9 Meadow Rue Place Monday afternoon, caution tape blocked off the yard, and investigators in full-body protective suits processed the scene. A Jeep sat in the driveway, the air missing from all four tires.

Gardner Crandall, who lives a block away from the Wilkinson’s home, said he found out about the alleged murder when he came home from work Sunday evening and the road was blocked off by deputies. He said he didn’t know the couple and that the heinous incident won’t change his opinion of their neighborhood, which he says has been a great place to raise his family.

Murphy said that because Wilkinson is former law enforcement officer, he is “very much aware of” his constitutional rights.

“A member of law enforcement certainly knows how an investigation works and certainly knows his rights relative to Miranda. So, we are certainly very careful, as we are in all cases, how to proceed with an investigation because we can only do it once,” Murphy said.

As the district attorney and sheriff’s offices investigate the homicide, Murphy said, they will continue to look for a motive. While Murphy said that motive isn’t “an element of the crime, ultimately jurors want to know about it, and certainly, as part of any investigation, the couple’s financial circumstances are part of the investigation and will be looked into.”

Wilkinson was charged with second-degree murder, then arraigned in Malta Town Court and remanded to Saratoga County Jail without bail. He is scheduled to appear June 17 in Malta Town Court.

If he is convicted of second-degree murder, he will face 25 years to life in prison.

According to New York State Trooper Mark Cepiel, Charles Wilkinson was ticketed May 5 after he was involved in a property-damage accident near his home. He damaged the exterior frame that housed multiple mailboxes in the community and, according to Cepiel, blamed the accident on a issue with the medication he was taking.

Cepiel said there were no domestic incidents on record for the Wilkinson residence.

Maggie Fronk, executive director of Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Services of Saratoga County, said domestic disputes are the second-most commonly committed violent crime in Saratoga County. There were four homicides in Saratoga County during 2011 and 2012, and domestic disputes were connected to all four of them, she said.

Fronk said domestic problems and violence, the threat of violence or just witnessing it has become an “important social and community issue.”

Fronk urged anyone in, or aware of, an abusive situation to contact agencies that can provide help them. The Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Services of Saratoga County hotline may be reached at 518-584-8188.